tima@agora.rain.com (Tim Anderson) (06/13/91)
I'm bandying about trying to calculate reasonable values for the step size in the CROSS direction while cutting surfaces. You know, if you are cutting with a ball end end mill, the height of the little cusp that is left over when you generate side by side passes. I find it hard to beleive that I'm the first person to work on this particular problem and humbly ask the net for any references. I'm interested in ALL types of end mills, ie ball, bull and square nose ones. I've worked out ball nose cutters using local curvature, and square nose cutters for frowny surfaces (ie convex I think) but I'm sure that there HAS to be a better way of doing this. I'm not particularly worried about gouge issues just yet, if that's any help. I'm sure someone with more intelligence than I has come up with a nice solution for all of the different end mill types, and I'm just here re- inventing the wheel... Thanks! tima@agora.rain.com no fancy .sig here